How the value derived from the asset of personal data could be distributed more equitably, under what principles and the most important: to whose good should it contribute?

Who owns the data, controls its value!Abstract

Personal data is fundamental to the very existence of data-driven business models. Its role can be seen in targeted ads, related and suggested content and pricing optimizations. Produsers, meanwhile, have neither access to the profits derived from data use, nor, as a rule, do they grasp that they actually produce. The only legal mechanism available to produsers is Data Protection regulations. Though

“data protection” protects privacy, not data. “Personal data” is not a synonym of “privacy”. Data is also a resource, capital and commodity produced by users of data-driven products and services.

Thus, we argue, users must have an active legal right to protect personal data as their property.

In our research we review multiple ways to effectively protect data as a possible subject to:

1.Mining Law for data defined as a resource,2.Corporate Law for data defined as a share in data banks and3.Intellectual Property Law

Our approach was not to break, but to respectfully analyze history of law and to understand its principles and interests of parties that are involved in data-driven value chains.

We examined possibilities for the profits made here to contribute to public, individual and business interests in brave fair ways and bring this information in form of modern apprehensible cases every produser can relate to.

Above all, the essay concludes that current data protection laws (i.g. EU directive 95/46/EC or UK Data Protection Act), seeking to protect privacy, exclude produsers from the data-driven value chains. Based on our research we rewrite legal definition of Personal Data and sketch a framework for Personal Data Ownership. In the designed framework the violation of the data security causes not only a moral, but also a material damage, it does not only evaluated as privacy abuse, but also as theft. The logic behind it is the fact, that data, produced by individuals has market value.

We do not have a ready for parliamentary reading manifesto. This topic must be discussed further, hence the choice of the transparent and collaborative format of the publication: a wikipedia article. Our framework is indeed speculative. Though data protection principles it conveys are pretty straightforward and sheer.